Having visited Costa at Middlebrook Retail Park, I was pretty dissatisfied with most aspects of my experience from the service to the overall beverage quality and comfortability of the store.
They have recently allowed people to sit in with their beverage, however, I think the sitting in area is very small, it seemed cramped and impossible to social distance. Like most Costa stores I've visited, staff didn't appear to be cleaning or sanitising tables or encouraging people to sign up on the NHS Contact Tracing scheme. The tables were again so close together, I couldn't help but be bothered and irritated by rude, obnoxious people within touching distance who made me just want to get the hell out of there.
They did seem really understaffed on both visits too, they seemed to only have one staff member taking orders, payment, getting food and making drinks. I felt sorry for him, he was doing far too much and the wait time was pretty long even for a basic beverage.
Most recently I tried an Iced Chai Latte, I am a fan of Chai having the best freshest Chai at Dishoom in Manchester and London Kings Cross locations, but here it seemed to have a funny taste. The one saving grace was the price. It is much cheaper now they have passed on the VAT reduction to customers, this is one of the few Costa stores I've found to actually do that.
No mobile order and pay which is frustrating, even more so as you have to deal with the queue.
The other drink I ordered on a previous visit was a Honeycomb ColdBrew, this wasn't mixed properly but I just found it to be too sweet and the Honeycomb seemed to overpower the coffee taste into a sickly, awful mess which was a real shame.
I wouldn't return here, and even at the cheaper prices due to the temporary cut of VAT by the UK government I still wouldn't say it's worth it. A real shame. read more